


Night Terrors

by 888mph



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/888mph/pseuds/888mph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire tells Mom she doesn't remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://community.livejournal.com/thingstiel/1610.html?thread=102474#t102474) prompt.
> 
> Set between 4.20 and 5.01.
> 
> Beta-ed by Pyjamagurl.
> 
> Originally written on November, 2010.

Mom is worried.

Every night she wakes Claire up from her nightmares and hugs her, asking what's wrong, what was it like.

Claire doesn't understand at first, but one night Mom is desperate. She shakes Claire and tells her what Sam told her. She tells her that Dad told him being a vessel for Castiel felt like being tied to the tail of a comet.

Claire wants to tell her that it was nothing like that. She wants to tell her that at first it felt like being surrounded by soft white feathers, floating around her like frozen rain. She wants to tell her that it was nice at first, but then she got bored and wanted to leave. She wants to tell her that the feathers were like a maze she couldn't escape, that they clung to her face like cobwebs. She wants to tell her there were roots clawing at her skin, that parts of her (of him) were pulling upwards, branching themselves towards the sun.

Claire wants to tell Mom she tried to scream, tried to tell Castiel that it wasn't fun anymore and that she wanted out, but there were white downy feathers down her throat and she couldn't breathe.

She wants to tell her it feels like he's back every night.

But Mom is sobbing and there's so much fear and guilt and love in her eyes and instead Claire tells her she doesn't remember.

********

Mom now lets Claire sleep in her bed, so that she can wake her up faster when Claire starts screaming.

Sometimes Claire wakes up and Mom is crying at the foot of their bed.

********

They never stay more than two nights in the same place, hiding from demons from town to town.

Mom salts the doors and windows of every new motel room like Sam told her to do. 

Claire wants to help. Mom tells her there are things little girls shouldn't worry about and tells her to unpack.

Claire doesn't know for how long Castiel took her as his vessel, but knows it couldn't have been for more than a few minutes. To her it felt like a thousand years.

********

From the window Claire watches as a tiny sparrow flies from a tree onto the pavement outside. It hops around and Claire can hear the excited little chirps it makes.

Claire smiles. The little bird is so adorable, she doesn't notice the cat lurking behind the tree, until there's a black and white blur passing by and the only thing that's left of the sparrow is a red splatter on the pavement.

She goes outside, her heart hammering against her chest in excitement. She picks one of the sparrow's feathers, the blood already cool and tacky against her skin.

But the feather is brown and not white and that night Claire wakes up screaming again.

********

Some nights Claire doesn't dream of white feathers.

Some nights Claire opens her eyes to see Dad pressing a fluffy white pillow against her face.

Those nights she doesn't wake up screaming. Instead, when she wakes up she's crying softly into the mattress.

Some nights Mom doesn't wake up.

********

In the next room Claire can hear laughter and giggles from several men and women and the pounding from what she thinks is the headboard of the bed hitting the plaster wall.

Outside windows are being broken. Some people scream. A man cries for God and a woman tells him He's dead and so are we.

There are sirens of ambulances, of fire trucks and police cars blasting in every direction around them.

The lights in their motel room are out, the only source of light is the flickering of the TV. Mom is sitting on the room's only armchair and watches.

Claire half-expects her to be praying. She waits for her mom to change channels and tell her to go to sleep.

Instead she's holding a bottle of whisky Claire has never seen before and doesn't even bat an eyelash when she catches Claire watching the news.

The reporters tell stories of floods and tsunamis all over the place, of outbreaks of the Swine flu, of nuclear testing in North Korea. All around the world people are rioting and some say the end is coming.

They talk about the explosion in Ilchester, Maryland, that could be seen miles away.

Claire watches until her eyelids are so heavy, she can't keep them open any longer, no matter how scared she is.

But that night Claire sleeps and doesn't dream.


End file.
